Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Lunacy of the Left

Now and then, it's good to recall how wacky the Left really is.

If an organization is getting most of its funding from public, governmental sources, then it ought to be beholden to the rules and mores codified in state and federal law. Otherwise all the arguments for "separation of church and state" being thrown around by opponents to the Plan B laws are rendered the hideously hypocritical bleats we've long suspected they were.A hospital wishing to turn their noses up at the law should cease accepting public funding, period. Otherwise, there is simply no excuse for forcing a rape victim to jump through a series of hoops to get EC. It's about as uncharitable and uncaring as you can get.That unhinged declamation from a "Plan B" proponent who wishes to force Catholic doctors and hospitals to provide abortion-on-demand (Plan B) to rape victims. She claims to be arguing merits against the erstwhile P-Mac. Yah, well...

Setting aside pragmatic considerations like...oh...taking Covenant's entire system out of the health-care business in Milwaukee (not to mention St. Mary's), which might produce a "health-care crisis" of truly apocalyptic proportions, let's examine the core of her "argument."

Precisely, the discussion IS about State (not Federal) law, Emily. But prior to 'legislation' is the State's Constitution. Under that document (which supercedes legislation, as you may recall from Civics 101) no mere State law can force anyone to perform an act against his/her religious principles.

Under Article 1, Section 18 of the state constitution “any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience” shall not be permitted.AB377, as currently written, WILL "interfere with the rights of conscience" in some cases. Not all--but some.

Emily claims to ascribe to that Constitutional provision:

...just as I believe that no one should dictate what religion I should or should not follow, I also believe that no one should force someone to do something that goes against their beliefs

....which is good.

But don't confuse Constitutional protections with spite, Emily. That doesn't create good public policy. Merely fix AB377 so that it comports with the State Constitution.

And if you want to close all the Catholic hospitals and get rid of all the Catholic doctors and nurses, go ahead.

This bill requires a hospital to do all of the following if it provides emergency services to a victim, as defined in the bill, of sexual assault: 1) provide her withmedically and factually accurate and unbiased written and oral information about emergency contraception and its use and efficacy; 2) orally inform her of her option to receive emergency contraception, her option to report the sexual assault to a lawenforcement agency, and any available options for her to receive an examination togather evidence regarding the sexual assault; and 3) immediately provide emergency contraception to her upon her request. If the medication is taken in more than one dosage, the hospital shall provide all subsequent dosages to the victim for later self administration.